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Rough Justice - The International Criminal Court's Battle to Fix the World, One Prosecution at a Time (Hardcover)
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Rough Justice - The International Criminal Court's Battle to Fix the World, One Prosecution at a Time (Hardcover)
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The Nuremberg trials after World War II constituted a landmark in
the development of international criminal justice: presided over by
jurists from the victorious powers, it set new standards for
defining international war crimes. Set in motion shortly after the
creation of the United Nations, the courts seemed to point toward a
future in which the international community could more effectively
prosecute crimes against humanity and advance the cause of justice
and the rule of law throughout the world. However, the onset of the
Cold War stymied all efforts to create an effective international
criminal court. Neither the US nor the USSR was willing to face the
possibility of being judged in a forum controlled by ideological
adversaries. Despite the lack of progress, the dream of the court
lived on through the 1980s, and when the Cold War ended, a new
opportunity arose. After the UN's creation of temporary courts
during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, a powerful grassroots
movement championing a permanent international criminal court
emerged. Facing stiff resistance from the US and other powerful
states, the movement triumphed against great odds. The court was
established in 2002, and it now has the support of over 100 states
(but not the US). The US opposes it outright and the Russians and
Chinese are skeptical of it for a simple reason: as the most
powerful states, they have no intention of surrendering
jurisdictional authority over their own citizens to lesser powers.
As a consequence, the court has faced numerous setbacks, and many
have questioned whether it has any real power at all. It has ended
up focusing its energies on pursuing war criminals in weak states,
typically in Africa. It is now caught on the horns of a dilemma: to
pursue justice, it does what it can where it can, but it cannot
actually prosecute figures in powerful states. Russia will never
surrender troops who may have acted badly in Georgia, and America
is not about to hand over soldiers who killed civilians in
Afghanistan. Yet the court has had some minor successes, and we
should remember that it is still in its very early days. As the
years pass, its jurisdictional authority may expand, and the norms
that it advances may achieve the status of common sense. Time will
tell. In Rough Justice, David Bosco tells the story of the movement
to establish the court and its tumultuous first decade. He also
considers its prospects for the future, especially the very real
challenges that it faces. This is an authoritative account of an
international institution that is prototypical of the post-Cold War
era.
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